Facebook Reportedly Makes Big Offer For News Content

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) is reportedly in talks with several
news outlets pay millions of dollars in exchange for the rights to display
their content on its platform. According to published reports, Facebook
representatives offered news executives as much as $3 million a year to license
stories, headlines, and other material in licensing deals that would last for
three years. It was not clear as to whether Facebook was offering $3 million to
individual publishers or in total to all news organizations.

According to reports, outlets approached by Facebook
included The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, and Disney-owned ABC News. A
person familiar with the matter said that BuzzFeed and CNN were also talking
with Facebook about the proposal. It’s unclear if any media outlets have agreed
to sign on. A Facebook spokesperson said that they wouldn’t comment on reports
about offers to media outlets.

Facebook confirmed that the company is working on launching
a “news tab” to deliver “trustworthy news” to the social network’s users this
fall. The news tab would be placed alongside its News Feed, Messenger and Watch
tabs. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg referenced having a news section on the
service back in April. Zuckerberg wrote at the time: “It’s important to me that
we help people get trustworthy news and find solutions that help journalists
around the world do their important work.”

Facebook has been criticized for years for using content created
by the news industry for free while sucking up a large portion of the digital
ad dollars the news industry needs to survive. Facebook and Google have been
the two dominant forces in digital advertising for years, and Amazon is quickly
rising up the ranks. Congress recently introduced a bipartisan bill that would
let news companies join forces to negotiate payments from the big tech
platforms by granting them an antitrust exemption.